Movie review: 'Evan' doesn't live up to 'Almighty' challenge

By Al Alexander/Patriot Ledger

Thursday

Jun 21, 2007 at 12:01 AMJun 21, 2007 at 9:19 PM

It all goes down about as smoothly as an apple in the Garden of Eden. But there’s nothing here to tickle your ribs or your fancy, just a series of misadventures that are the equivalent of Dante’s nine circles of hell, only not nearly as fun.

Those weren’t false profits conjured up by Jim Carrey playing God in “Bruce Almighty.” But there was certainly something unholy about the 240 million pieces of silver his believers invested in a comedic sacrilege.

Now we’re being asked to invest our faith (and $10) in a new messiah, one with far less sanctity, in Steve Carell, making history as the first bit player to be rewarded with the most expensive comedy sequel ($175 million) ever made in “Evan Almighty.”

Nothing personal, understand, cause I think Carell is one of the funniest men on TV. There isn’t an episode of “The Office” that he fails to crack me up. And as a 40-year-old virgin, he has no equal.

But cast him as a modern-day Noah and provide him with jokes older than Moses, and you’re talking a disaster of biblical proportions.

While it might not be the worst movie of the year, it’s certainly among the leaders, committing sin upon sin in flooding the screen in idiocy while putting a modern spin on the ancient tale of the ark.

Two-by-two, the tired gags parade by as Carell and his co-stars find themselves caught in a torrent of poop, fart and crotch jokes. Oh, did I mention that this juvenile crud is for kids?

If you’re smart, you’ll leave all recitations of Genesis 6:14 to the Sunday school teachers and not the tandem of Steve Oederkerk and Tom Shadyac, who prove even less blessed in their second comings as the writer and director of these (not-so) “Almighty” tales.

Clearly, they have no concept of right and wrong, as they flaunt their failings with a series of comedic missteps that send their ark up a certain creek without a paddle.

Worse, we, the unsuspecting audience, wind up knee-deep in that creek’s waters.
Humor? Is that what they call something as tired as the family dog sinking his fangs into Dad’s groin – not once but twice – or Carell screaming every time God (again taking the pleasing form of Morgan Freeman) pops up in the back seat of Evan’s brand-new Hummer?

It gets even worse when this “Oh, God” rip off suddenly turns into a “Dr. Dolittle” redo with yet another overtaxed family man getting drenched in bird doo and llama spit. It’s about then that you’re tempted to hoof it.

Yet you stay, simply because “Evan Almighty” is such a train wreck of a movie you can’t help but be intrigued by its awfulness. You think “it can’t possibly can’t any worse,” but it does, wasting not only Carell’s talents but also those of Gilmore Girl Lauren Graham, as Evan’s doubting wife and mother of his three prefab Hollywood kids.

Theirs is a family so phony and rooted in movieland hokum that you don’t so much root for them as despise them. With good reason: they’re all self-centered, me-me-me, prigs that you pray for God (heck, even Morgan Freeman) to smite.

Quite a change from the last time we saw Evan as Jim Carrey’s nemesis and chief rival for the anchor seat at a Buffalo TV station. In “Bruce,” Carell was actually funny, stealing the show from his mugging co-star by famously delivering his newscast in tongues.

In this latest incarnation, Evan has traded in his teleprompter for a newly elected seat in Congress, where he’s instantly taken under the wing of the biggest man (literally and figuratively) in the House (John Goodman), who wants Evan’s vote on a bill that would open up protected lands for development and make the crooked pol a bundle.

It’s at about the same time that the other Big Guy takes Evan under His wing and without explanation orders the freshman congressman to build Him an ark and load it with two of every species on earth. Talk about a fantasy; a Congressman doing something to help mankind?

After some initial reluctance, a suddenly hirsute Evan agrees to do God’s bidding, and predictably gets labeled a nut by both his colleagues and his family, all of whom abandon him.

Audiences will likely do the same given the film’s terminal lack of humor, not to mention all those cloying stabs at sentiment, as the ever hypocritical Hollywood hacks try to convince us that owning a big house and even bigger Hummer is tantamount to snuggling up with Mephistopheles. Have any of them checked the driveways of their mansions lately?

It all goes down about as smoothly as an apple in the Garden of Eden. But there’s nothing here to tickle your ribs or your fancy, just a series of misadventures that are the equivalent of Dante’s nine circles of hell, only not nearly as fun.

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